PlayGround Celebrates Leading Dramatists at 4-City One PlayGround Gala / Sep 15
One of the nation’s oldest and most respected developers of new works for the theatre, PlayGround will mark the conclusion of its 30th Anniversary Season with a four-city gala celebration taking place simultaneously in New York City (Carmine’s Upper West Side), Chicago (Osteria Via Stato), Los Angeles (Rossoblu) and San Francisco (Verdi Club) on Monday, September 15, 2025. Highlighting this year’s event, PlayGround will honor the 2025 PlayGround Heroes, four distinguished dramatists who through their careers and body of work have set an example for the members of the PlayGround community: Mia Chung (New York), Lydia R. Diamond (Chicago), Philip Kan Gotanda (San Francisco), and Steve Yockey (Los Angeles). This year’s event is hosted by the PlayGround Gala honorary committee, comprised of leading theatremakers from across the country, including many past gala honorees: Carson Becker, Snehal Desai, Prince Gomolvilas, Adam Greenfield, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Pam MacKinnon, Jonathan Moscone, Karissa Murrell Myers, Bruce Norris, Lynn Nottage, Jonathan Spector, Tony Taccone, Jeremy Wechsler, and Lauren Yee. Tickets are $300 (host tickets begin at $500) and include a four-course gourmet dinner, live entertainment and testimonials, both in-person and livestreamed between the four cities. Proceeds from this year’s Gala will support PlayGround’s 30th Anniversary Campaign, a strategic initiative to help propel PlayGround and its burgeoning community of artists to the next level. For tickets and more information, visit https://playground-sf.org/gala.
ABOUT THE PLAYGROUND HEROES
MIA CHUNG‘s (New York Honoree) play Catch as Catch Can will have a Chicago premiere in June 2026 as part of Steppenwolf’s 50th season. The play was produced by Playwrights Horizons (NYC) in Fall 2022; the world premiere was produced by Page 73 (NYC) in Fall 2018. She is a 2024 MacDowell fellow and a 2023 Whiting Award recipient. Her monologue Ball in the Air premiered in OUT OF TIME in Winter 2022, produced by NAATCO/The Public Theater. Her play Double Take appeared in Playwrights Horizons’ inaugural issue of ALMANAC in 2021. Her play You for Me for You had a UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, a Korean premiere at the National Theatre Center of Korea, a US premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre (DC), and multiple productions around the country. The play is published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. Awards, commissions, residencies include: Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Civilians’ R&D Group, Clubbed Thumb, Frederick Loewe Award in Music-Theatre, Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, JAW at Portland Center Stage, MTC/Sloan, the NEA, NYTW, Playwrights’ Center/Jerome, Playwrights Horizons/Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust Commission, Playwrights Realm, South Coast Rep, SPACE/Ryder Farm, Stavis Award, TCG Global Connections, and the Unicorn Theatre (London). Her work is included in Fifty Playwrights on Their Craft (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018), The Kilroys List: 99 Monologues by Female & Trans* Playwrights, Vol 1 (Theatre Communications Group, 2016) and The Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 2013 (Smith & Kraus). She is an alumni member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Huntington Theatre playwright fellows, New Dramatists, and a past member of the PlayGround Writers Pool. She attended Yale (BA); the University of Dublin, Trinity College (M.Phil.); and Brown (MFA).
LYDIA R. DIAMOND (Chicago Honoree) is an award-winning playwright whose works include: The Gift Horse, Toni Stone, Smart People, Stick Fly (Broadway), Voyeurs de Venus, Harriet Jacobs, The Bluest Eye, The Inside, and Stage Black. Her work has been performed at companies including: American Conservatory Theatre Company, The Huntington Theatre (Stick Fly, Smart People [Premiere], The Bluest Eye), Congo Square, Steppenwolf Theatre Co., The Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, Company One, Writers Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center, New Victory at the Duke (Off-Broadway), The Guthrie Theater, Roundabout Theatre Co. (Off-Broadway), Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Second Stage Theater (Off-Broadway), Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, True Colors, MPAACT, Arden Theatre Co., Encores at City Center (New York), Intiman Theatre, and PlayMakers Repertory Company. Diamond has been a W. E. B. DuBois Institute Non-Resident Fellow at Harvard, a Sundance Playwright Lab Creative Advisor, a Radcliffe Institute Fellow, a Sally B. Goodman Fellow, and a National Endowment for the Arts/TCG playwright in residence. Awards include: Horton Foote Playwriting Award, Joseph Jefferson Award, IRNE Award Nomination, Elliot Norton Award Nomination, Audelco Nomination, Kilroy’s List, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist, LA Critics Circle Award, and National Art’s Club Kesselring Prize for Playwriting. She was a Consulting Producer and writer for Showtime’s 4th season of The Affair and nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for best Drama Episode. She has also written for NBC, HBO, HBOMAX, and Hulu. Diamond has an Honorary MFA from A.C.T., and an Honorary Doctorate from Pine Manor College. She sits on the Dramatists Guild Legal Defense Fund Board and The Dramatist Guild Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access Committee. Diamond is an Associate Professor of Playwriting at University of Illinois at Chicago.
PHILIP KAN GOTANDA (San Francisco Honoree) has been a major influence in the broadening of our definition of theater in America. Through his plays and advocacy, Mr. Gotanda is instrumental in bringing stories of the AANHPI to American theater. Mr. Gotanda has specialized in investigating the Japanese American family writing a cycle of works in theater, film, song and opera that chronicles Japanese America from the early 1900s to present. The opera, Both Eyes Open, created with composer Max Giteck Duykers, was presented at the Zellerbach Playhouse in Berkeley earlier this year. It investigates the interior life of a nisei farmer incarcerated during WWII. In the Bay Area, Mr. Gotanda has worked with Asian American Theater Company, Eureka Theater Company, American Conservatory Theater, Oakland Ensemble Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Campo Santo+Intersection, Magic Theatre, San Jose Repertory, Center Theater, among others. Mr. Gotanda holds a law degree from UC Law San Francisco and studied pottery in Mashiko, Japan with the late Hiroshi Seto. Mr. Gotanda is a respected independent filmmaker. His feature film, Life Tastes Good, was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival. Mr. Gotanda’s film adaptation of his play, The Wash, directed by Michael Toshiyuki Uno, was one of the first films about the Asian American family to receive at theatrical release. Mr. Gotanda is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the USA Artist Award, The Dramatist Guild Legacy Award as well as other honors and awards. Mr. Gotanda is a Professor with the Department of Theater Dance and Performance Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Mr. Gotanda was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Gotanda resides at the Berkeley Art Plant with his wife, actor and novelist, Diane Takei Gotanda, and their house buddy, Cosimo Finn McCool.
STEVE YOCKEY (Los Angeles Honoree) is a Los Angeles-based writer. Recipient of multiple National New Play Network (NNPN) rolling world premieres, his plays Pluto, Mercury, Bellwether, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, Cartoon, Very Still & Hard to See, Blackberry Winter, The Thrush & The Woodpecker, The Fisherman’s Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, Niagara Falls, To Tokyo & the Moon, Reykjavík, Sleeping Giant, Subculture, and Curiosities are published and licensed by Concord Theatricals. He holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Steve was a Co-Executive Producer on the series Supernatural and is the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated creator/showrunner of HBO Max’s darkly comedic thriller The Flight Attendant. He is also the creator/showrunner of Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives, adapted from the cult Vertigo/DC comic.
ABOUT PLAYGROUND
PlayGround was founded in 1994 by Jim Kleinmann, Brighde Mullins, and Denise Shama, beginning as a professional-academic partnership in residence at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and with initial sponsorship from SFSU’s Creative Writing Program. Early participating artists included Prince Gomolvilas, Garret Jon Groenveld, Daniele Nathanson, Sandra Hunter, Colman Domingo, Kent Nicholson, Antigone Trimis, Mary Coleman, and Rhonnie Washington. The fledgling organization moved to Project Artaud and A Traveling Jewish Theatre’s new 80-seat black box theatre in 1996, at which time Kleinmann took on sole leadership as PlayGround’s founding artistic director.
The company was in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre from 2003 until the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and has also presented at the San Francisco Main Library, Freight & Salvage, Zeum, A.C.T.’s Costume Shop, and Thick House, as well as co-producing with such notable Bay Area theatres as San Francisco Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Impact Theatre, San Jose Stage, and Magic Theatre, among others. PlayGround first brought its work to New York City with the 2008 co-production of Garret Jon Groenveld’s Missives, followed by the 2009 NY International Fringe Festival hit co-production of Aaron Loeb’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party, 2013 NY International Fringe Festival co-production of Katie May’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl. PlayGround celebrated its 25th anniversary with a one-night program of original short musicals at NYC’s Theatre Row in 2019.
PlayGround’s first ongoing regional expansion came in 2012 with the launch of PlayGround-LA at West Hollywood’s Zephyr Theatre. In 2018, PlayGround-LA relocated to Hollywood’s Broadwater Theaters (home of Sacred Fools Theater Company), where the company continues to present its Monday Night series. PlayGround expanded to NYC in 2021 and Chicago in 2022, with in-person performances (and simulcasts) beginning in the Spring of 2023, at NYC’s Producers Club and Chicago’s Theater Wit, respectively.
Over its 30-year history, PlayGround has grown into a leading national playwright incubator and theatre community hub, providing unique development opportunities for the Bay Area’s and, more recently, Los Angeles’, New York’s, and Chicago’s best new playwrights through innovative programs such as the monthly Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series, annual PlayGround Festival of New Works, full-length play commissions, playwright residencies and production support through the New Play Production Fund.
To date, PlayGround has developed and staged more than 1,500 original short plays through Monday Night PlayGround and the PlayGround Festival. PlayGround has also commissioned and/or developed several hundred new full-length plays by PlayGround alumni through its Commissioning Initiative, Playwrights Residency and Alumni Programs and, through the innovative New Play Production Fund, has directly facilitated the premiere of 40 full-length plays at theatres of every size, including many that have gone on to NYC and other major theater communities across the country.
In 2017, PlayGround launched Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, a 99-seat state-of-the-art performance venue to serve as a shared community resource for dozens of local companies and hundreds of artists. New programs in residence at Potrero Stage like the Free-Play Festival, Solo Performance Festival, and Innovator Incubator provide opportunities for local and national artists to self-determine and showcase their work in San Francisco at little to no cost.
More than 350 early-career playwrights have gotten their start at PlayGround, including Lauren Yee, Jonathan Spector, Geetha Reddy, and Cleavon Smith, helping to expand and deepen the canon of American Theatre. PlayGround’s alumni have gone on to win local, national, and international honors for their short and full-length work, including recognition at the Steinberg Awards, Glickman Awards, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and New York International Fringe Festival, among others. PlayGround serves one of the largest theatre artist networks in the nation, connecting hundreds of Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York artists in support of a common vision: the development of bold and diverse new voices and new works.
This work has not gone unnoticed. PlayGround has received numerous awards, including Playwrights Foundation’s Inaugural New Play Champion Award, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle’s Paine Knickerbocker Award for ongoing contributions to Bay Area theatre, and American Theater Wing’s National Theater Grant. In 2016, Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann was recognized by Theatre Bay Area as one of the Bay Area’s top 40 leaders. Three of PlayGround’s commissioned plays have won the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle award for Best New Play, and three have had subsequent productions in NYC. Five of the past ten Will Glickman Award winners for best new play are PlayGround alumni, including recent Tony Award winner Jonathan Spector. When other theatre companies think of producing new work, PlayGround artists are often their first call. As a result of PlayGround’s strong leadership, planning, and a willingness to take bold risks with high payoff, the new play ecosystem has been utterly transformed by PlayGround. For more information, visit playground-sf.org.
WHAT: One of the nation’s oldest and most respected developers of new works for the theatre, PlayGround will mark the conclusion of its 30th Anniversary Season with a four-city gala celebration taking place simultaneously in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco on Monday, September 15, 2025. Highlighting this year’s event, PlayGround will honor the 2025 PlayGround Heroes, four distinguished dramatists who through their careers and body of work have set an example for the members of the PlayGround community: Mia Chung (New York), Lydia R. Diamond (Chicago), Philip Kan Gotanda (San Francisco), and Steve Yockey (Los Angeles).
WHERE: Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Rossoblu, 1124 San Julian St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Carmine’s Upper West Side, 2450 Broadway, New York, NY 10024
Osteria Via Stato, 620 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654
WHEN: 5pm PT / 7pm CT / 8pm ET, September 15, 2025
TICKETS: General Admission tickets start at $300. Host tickets are $1,000 (includes two host-level tickets and recognition on the host committee). Table Hosts are $5,000 (includes a table of eight plus recognition on the host committee). Event Hosts are $10,000 (includes up to 12 host-level tickets plus recognition on the host committee). For more information about the One PlayGround Gala, call 415-992-6677 or visit playground-sf.org/gala